Sacramento, CA - SureWest - Page 31

Not really... If you had your DVR receiver tuned to a channel but initially not recording it, when you hit the "record" button, it will start at the moment you tuned to it or the show started (if it was tuned to that channel before the beginning of the current show.)

Hi All

I have surewest TV/Internet/Phone package here in Roseville. I have the VIP1216 Motorola set-top box. There is a reoccurring problem with the service where programs I've set to record are interrupted. The end result is two line items in the DVR for the same program, but with a time gap for recordings.

For example, say I set it to record Law & Order, USAHD, 7pm. The program length is 1 hour. When the DVR records the program it breaks it into two entries. It seems it stops recording at some point during the program for an unknown reason, and then resumes recording. I'll see two entries for that episode of Law & Order in the DVR. The first entry will entry could be something like 7pm to 7:20pm. Then the second entry could be from 7:30pm to 8pm. Then there is a gap from 7:20pm to 7:30pm missing, not present in either entry.

I'd estimate this happens 10-20% of the time. I have had a call open with Surewest for over a month. They swapped out my DVR and apparently have my old one sitting with "the lab" whom are looking at it.

Anyone else experience this issue?


Thanks,

-Bill

Sorry, I haven't seen this type of problem at all. Once in a long while, an occasional freeze or dropout, that's it. I assume you have fiber, correct? Is the new DVR box okay?

This happens with momentary power outages. We've had it happen several times in recent months.

Has anyone here heard about potential speed upgrades in the coming year?

Ugh I just got a TiVo Premier and Surewest doesn't provide Cable Cards. So I either need to change service providers or return the TiVo. This sucks.

My two year contract with DirecTV is up and I am thinking about moving to Surewest. I'm interested in comments from those who have had their service for a while and what the level of satisfaction is. I have read the entire thread so I'm aware of some of the past issues, but things seem to have settled down recently and I don't see a lot of complaints. Any comments, good or bad are welcomed.

That is because SureWest is not a CABLE company. SureWest is a telephone/network access company that provides video services over it's network, while companies like Comcast are a cable company that provides telephone/network access over it's cable system. Initially SureWest was just a telephone company. To the consumer, they tend to blend together, but technologically speaking, they are like comparing apples to oranges.

I am curious as to why you are considering DTV. I want to leave Comcast and have been leaning strongly to DTV. Have you had any issues or problems? Do you have the DTV whole home DVR? If so what has been your experience with it?

A friend of mine had Surewest and he was very unhappy with the quality of the non-high definition channels so much so that he went back to Comcast. I do not think he had fiber to his curb site so there was some other equipment involved to get the signal over his coaxial cable lines so your experience may be different.

I have actually been a DirecTV sub since DirecTV started. I've used their services in a number of different cities. But, I've grown tired of the audio dropouts and continual price increases (they have another one scheduled for Feb). I thought this go around I would seriously consider Surewest, since I do have Fibre to the curb and like their internet/telephone service.

I will say that I asked for a written quote from them via email over a week ago. They said they would get back to me within 1 business day, and I haven't heard anything from them. You would think they would be aggressively targeting potential new customers.

I too am wondering what the general consensus is on the Surewest TV service now. I'm a long time Directv customer and have been following this thread for quite a while. I live in EG and have Surewest internet and phone which I'm quite happy with. I haven't used the newest DVR's as I'm a TIVO holdout who's grown tired of waiting for a new HD TIVO to replace mine that still work well, but get very few HD channels. My main concerns have been missed recordings/stability and capacity - we have 3 DVR's now and one stays full of nickelodeon's finest. Surewest's SD picture quality can't be worse than directv's so I think that's a wash. I'd save quite a bit with the full bundle at least over the first year.

So are the new dvr's working out? Does the whole home work as advertised? Are you generally happy with the TV service? Or did everyone already switch back to Comcast?

I am with Surewest since a long time. The newer system (U-verse clone) is great - except it appears that Surewest may have reduced the bandwidth (or compression ration) for video in the last couple of months. The images are not as sharp as they used to be. The internet is awesome - no issues.

I can pretty much repeat what supertester777 says about SureWest. The DVR can record up to 2 HD channels and 2 additional SD channels at a time. I've had no real problems with this. There are a few caveats that annoy from time to time though. Normally, it is not an issue that it records a couple minutes before and a couple minutes after a show is to record... this is nice for when something gets delayed a minute or two. The problem with this is this; say at 7PM, I'm recording something on 613 and 608. At 8PM, I'm going to record something on 613 and 603... I'm going to have a conflict because I'm overlapping on 3 separate channels... 603, 613 and 608 for a few minutes, when I can only record two HD streams at a time; I don't seem to have the same issue if I were to record back-to-back programs on two of the same channels like 608 and 613 for both the 7PM hour and 8PM hour. Another occasional problem is it NOT letting me know that I have a conflict and a show isn't recorded due to a conflict; this often happens with the issue I just reported.

Thanks for the info. I had hoped they would have the HD picture quality sorted out as this is one of the things that they advertise sets them apart from the other services. As for the conflicts I am used to having only 2 tuners with the TIVO and we rarely run into problems. Of course with directv we have multiple DVR's.

Does the surewest DVR automatically buffer the channels it's tuned to or do you have to setup recordings? If so can you easily switch between buffered tuners. On the tivo it's always buffering both tuners and you can just hit one button to switch between tuners. Especially nice during football season.

Thanks for the feedback. The only other questions I have is about outages and DVR expansion. Has anyone experienced an excessive amount of outages? I only ask because the last time I used cable (which was over 12 years ago), I was frustrated by the amount of time my service went out. Is Surewest pretty reliable?

Second, does the Surewest DVR allow you to hook up an external Hardrive for recording expansion? My DirecTV DVR does, and I like being able to record a lot more shows than the internal drive would normally allow.

I don't recall the last time I had any hiccups with delivery. A year or so ago, I'd have an occasional channel that would lock up for a few minutes, but I have not seen that in quite some time. Much of the content comes to SureWest via fiber and it is distributed via fiber to customers... fiber generally is unaffected by bad weather like satellite, an issue that used to drive me crazy many years ago when I had satellite service.

As for expansion, unfortunately, to my understanding, you get what they give you.... no option to expand upon that. If I'm not mistaken, it is a 160GB hard drive, very anemic if you ask me. I would SO like to replace it with a 1TB hard drive or something, but that is not an option. If anyone has found a way to increase the storage, I haven't heard of it at least.

Once again a big thanks for the responses. I'm going to call Surewest this week and see what they can offer. I don't see any real downside since I no longer buy the NFL Sunday Ticket and still get the audio dropouts from DTV (although they are less frequent). I'll be sure to let everyone know how it goes.

Since we began paying for television (microwave) programming in Sacramento in 1977 , we've changed providers many times, each time something 'newer and better' came along. We were thrilled when Winfirst arrived. We are currently using Surewest simply because it is the only service that allows us to record two HD channels. We had Uverse but are not close enough to a 'node' to record two HD channels, otherwise we would still be their customers. When something more desirable than Surewest becomes available, I expect we will move to it. Or unless our Surewest problems become intolerable.

Each service provides some frustrations but I don't think we ever switched providers solely because of problems. If Surewest goes sour, I expect we would revert back to Uverse or Comcast. We have never used satellite because of the horror stories from our neighbors.

Since we re-joined Surewest a year ago this month, we've replaced the DVR twice and will soon replace it again. My wife is often frustrated by the Surewest DVR and misses our old Tivo units. All services have their hiccups and Surewest is no different, which is why we neither encourage or discourage others to Surewest

My install is set for Thursday morning. I plan on being present to make sure it is done correctly because I have four sets in the house. Three are HD and one is SD. I will be sure to share my experience (good and bad). I have not cancelled DTV yet, just because I want to make sure that the install happens before cancellation. The wife tends to get upset if her TV viewing gets interupted.

Well, I'm over a year into my current Surewest contract now (having switched from Dish Network prior, and a short-lived Surewest prior to that with the ADB boxes).

While my 50" DLP is about 6 years old and only 720p, I do notice the degraded video quality. Not enough to be a huge factor for me, but it's there.

Ah, the DVR. Where to begin. While the Mediaroom interface is fairly easy to use, its simplistic feature set pales in comparison to competitors. Dish Network's interface, while clunky at times, afforded a great amount of power and control in areas like programming search and series recording management. I absolutely hate hate hate that I cannot prioritize future recordings in Mediaroom. It has been the source of much angst, especially when my kids' shows get recorded instead of mine. You cannot set a cap on the number of recordings per series, so the hard drive fills up rather quickly. And speaking of which, yes, the limited capacity is inexplicable in this age of cheap storage.

I was drawn back to Surewest due to the technology. Remote set top boxes accessing the master DVR over Ethernet works beautifully, in contrast to Dish's rather archaic, standard definition "TV2" connection via coaxial. And for the time being I'm staying put due to the really great deal they offered to keep me as a customer for another year. But sometimes I sure do miss using even my old Tivo Series 1. To this day, I still think Tivo is the only manufacturer who successfully merged power with ease of use.

My install went off without a hitch yesterday. The installer did a great job and really took his time in setting things up the way my wife and I wanted. He took extra time showing her and the kids how to work the remote and all the menus. My kids were even impressed with his positive attitude. One thing I did appreciate was him giving me progress reports and treating the old DTV equipment (and house) with care. He even took time to wrap the cords and set it all in a closet.

As far as the picture, well it's okay. I agree that it could be "sharper" but the quality is a bit above average.

I just canceled DTV and they tried everything in the book to try and get me to change my mind. They promised equipment upgrades (to whole house DVR) and a reduced bill for 90 days, then 180 days. They even called back later to say they would give it to me for a year and 90 days of Sunday Ticket next season. I respectfully declined and told them that I had already decided and changed over. The final line, "Is there anything we can do to change your mind?" almost got me, but I told them to "pound sand" and not to call anymore (I hate salesmen who are persistent).

I again want to thank every one for their honest feedback. It was helpful.

Congratulations on your install. Did they have to run CAT 5 lines for you? When they switched to the Motorola boxes, picture quality was not as good as before. I don't think Surewest agrees with us. Did they tell you of any updates coming? Wish they would enable the USB port on the DVR. I know Dish network allows this. At least we could then add more storage that way.

Thanks. They did not have to run Cat 5 for me since my house is already fully wired. I did inquire with the installer (who had been with Surewest about 10 years) about any upcoming updates. He indicated that an update was coming soon through the network. He didn't know exactly when (but thought it might be in February). I was very interested in additional external storage (as noted in my previous posts), but he said that there was talk about enabling the USB, but knew that it wasn't part of the coming software update.

Curious as to why you cancelled DTV? Were you having a problems or issues? Did you have DTV's whole house DVR? The reason I ask is I am thinking about switching from Comcast to DTV as I will save a lot of money over 2 years.

I'm thinking about making the same switch from directv. I already have surewest internet and phone and like the idea of bundled pricing.

My old direcTIVO units that I've been nursing along are starting to fail. With directv's pay to lease model at list price I'd need to pay $199 for a dvr and $99 for each receiver. It is possible to keep calling different reps to get this reduced, and it seems the previous poster might have gotten offered some deals. I just hate this method of doing business. New customers would obviously get all of this for free. There is also directv's preference of sending older model, refurbished dvr's out to existing customers. Directv's newest dvr model seems to be performing well, but the older ones not so much

As for the surewest dvr is there really no keep at most setting? No equivalent of TIVO's prioritizer? With 1 dvr in the house and limited recording capacity this seems destined for problems.

I had been a DTV customer since DTV started up in the 90's. My main complaint is the most recent price hike (which begins next month) and the consistent audio drop outs that I would get. I had the full package with DTV (with 4 TV's) and am saving significantly over my DTV bill.

I haven't experienced any audio dropouts since I got Surewest Cable. The DVR from Surewest definitely has it's limitations. You do not have a prioritizer. You basically can "save until full" or "save until I delete". For me the only real advantage to DTV any more is the Sunday Ticket. But it has gotten so expensive I canceled it this season (especially because I still couldn't see the Raiders during the blackouts).

I am considering a switch from Dish to Surewest due to the savings for bundling (I have phone and internet). Are the earlier problems mentioned in this thread regarding HD quality with the introduction of MediaRoom been resolved? Since there has been little traffic on this thread, I am wondering if it has gotten better or if folks have given up.

As far as picture quality, I believe it will be equal or better than Dish... I don't think that was really the issue when we talked about our quality going down. The quality before the transition to MediaRoom was stellar, second-to-none. Have you seen KOVR, Channel 13 over-the-air in HDTV with a good, reliable signal? If so, that is the type of quality we were accustomed to prior to the change over. I chose KOVR for my example because they do not use any sub-channels and the entire ATSC bandwidth is dedicated to one HDTV stream. After the transition, they compressed the signal to about the quality of traditional cable or satellite. THAT is why we complained about picture quality; we had something FAR superior to the rest and now have to settle on being only slightly better. That lack of commenting has been due to people becoming accustomed to it. I just moved from one location to another in Roseville, fiber customer in both locations, and it was a no-brainer for me to stick with SureWest after the move. I only get my Internet and video service through SureWest, I've had Vonage since 2003, through several moves. When it comes to Internet, nothing in the area compares to the speed and reliability of SureWest for the same ballpark price.

Thanks bigRoN. The explanation was very helpful. I haven't seen any of the HD channels OTA, so I guess I don't know what I am missing. I don't have any real complaints on quality with Dish, just looking to save some money and going to SureWest seems to make the best sense. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't degrading further.

Now my only other issue is the lack of Travel Channel in HD. Hopefully they will add it soon (the family has some favorite shows on that channel and will now have to watch in SD until added). Not sure if calling them will make a difference, but I can try.

Anyone figure out a way to set the DVR to record just one episode per week of those cable channels that designate a program as NEW multiple times a week?

We got the latest Mediaroom version recently and am wondering is there any way for the end user to make suggestions about Mediaroom. Besides File 13?